Repost-From Foreign Policy: ‘Leftist Planet’

Our author criticizes the travel guides, mainly ‘Lonely Planet’ for being out of touch:

‘THERE IS AN almost Orientalist presumption that the citizens of places like Cuba or Afghanistan have made a choice in rejecting globalization and consumerism. From the perspective of the disaffected Westerner, poverty is seen as enviable, a pure existence unsullied by capitalism. ‘

Well, most people travel to take a risk, and for new experiences, and to broaden their horizons and understanding and learn about other cultures. Our author finishes with:

‘So go to Cuba. Try to get that visa to North Korea. Visit the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Just make sure to throw your Lonely Planet and Rough Guides in the trash before you do.’

Of course, be careful and be street-smart, too, and good luck getting to North Korea. Apparently, the folks over at Lonely Planet are still hitting the hippie trail, looking to romanticize the ‘noble savage’ or go searching for the pristine tribe and/or life-affirming anthropological/new age experience away from the industrial, capitalist, soulless, over-individualized West.

As for me, just give me some good tips and as many facts as possible. I’ll sift through the rest.

*Michael Totten has a new book Where The West Ends, and it’s good reading about his travels to Iraq (Kurdistan) via Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, and to the Ukraine and Georgia. Not places you would normally go.